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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29643285">Dimension Gate</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatersalad5001/pseuds/tatersalad5001'>tatersalad5001</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS, Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Childhood Trauma, Duelling, Family, Friendship, Gen, Hugsaku 2021, Nightmares, Possession, and some vague point before season 3 of vrains. that's more up to interpretation, this takes place before episode 20 of zexal</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 20:34:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>16,593</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29643285</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatersalad5001/pseuds/tatersalad5001</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“So, are you going home, then? Or…” Yuma spoke eventually. </p><p>“Oh right,” Yusaku blinked. "I don't know where I am or how I got here. So I have no idea how to do that." </p><p>Yusaku ends up in Heartland with no idea how he got there or how to get home.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Fujiki Yuusaku &amp; Tsukumo Yuuma</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>49</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Crossover | Skipping Dimensions</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This year I figured I’d take part in the hugsaku week. In the past with events like these, I’ve seen people take the prompts and turn them into one continuous story, and I ended up wanting to give that a try. I used a combination of prompts from the 2021 list and the 2019 list to write this out, so I hope you enjoy it!</p><p>This isn’t any of the day 1 prompts, I know... I ended up taking this prompt and using it to sort of set up the story, so this ended up being slightly out of order. The rest of the prompts should be in order, though. I do have an actual day 1 that will post later today, so there’s that to look forward to.</p><p><a href="https://hugsaku.tumblr.com/themes">Here</a> is the list of prompts! I'll also be posting these over at <a href="https://datanamines.tumblr.com/tagged/hugsaku">tumblr</a> as well. I hope you enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Where am I? What is this?”</p><p>There was not an area like this anywhere in Link Vrains. Den City definitely looked nothing like this. Yusaku glanced down at himself briefly; okay, he was in the real world. So where was he? </p><p>He had another question: how did he get here? The last thing he could remember was...actually, he couldn't remember the last thing that happened. It wasn't a complete amnesia, he had most of his memories intact, but there was a definite blank before he got to wherever this was. Which left him with no ideas of how to get home. Great. </p><p>While he'd been checking his outfit to check if he was in the real world or Vrains, Yusaku noticed a card on the ground. It wasn't terribly uncommon for someone to accidentally drop a card in Den City. This was a completely blank card, however. Cards usually weren’t completely blank, and people didn’t tend to carry around blank cards, let alone lose them. Curious, he bent down to get a close look. </p><p>“Ai, do you know of any cards that are completely blank being used in Vrains, or why anyone would have one?”</p><p>He waited a few moments for Ai to respond, but the next few seconds were filled with nothing but silence.</p><p>That meant something was wrong. Ai loved to talk, especially when he knew something Yusaku didn't.</p><p>"Ai?” Yusaku tapped the top of his duel disk, but got no reaction. Either something was wrong with Ai, or Ai wasn't here. That worried Yusaku more than he'd like to admit.</p><p>His attention was drawn back to the blank card. Maybe his brain was just trying to distract itself from bigger, more terrifying problems with something smaller and more manageable. What was this thing? Maybe if he picked it up and got a closer look... </p><p>“Hey, buddy! you really shouldn't pick up that card!" Whatever the complete stranger who Yusaku couldn't even see was yelling about, it was too late for that. The card was already in Yusaku’s hand. He heard footsteps running behind him and assumed they probably belonged to the person that was yelling. </p><p>Yusaku turned around and, sure enough, someone was running directly at him. He glared at them." I am not your buddy. We are not friends.”</p><p>“Okay I get it, we don't know each other. But you shouldn’t keep that card. It's dangerous.”</p><p>Yusaku snorted. “Why should I give up this card, especially to a little kid?" He looked down at the card, and saw it was no longer blank. It was an actual card now, and XYZ Monster, and now it was <em>his</em>. There was a dull ache in the back of his head, but he ignored it. "This is exactly what I need to get my revenge, and I’ll never let anyone take that from me." He hadn't been thinking about truly putting it in his deck until he picked it up, but now he felt the strong urge to use it, like the card wanted to be with him. </p><p>“Well, if you're going to be like that, I’m gonna have to duel you for it!" The stranger held a duel disk in front of him and put some sort of eyepiece on his face.</p><p>Yusaku heard the word ‘duel’, stared at the eyepiece, and felt something between fear and confusion fill him. What was he doing? He glanced at the XYZ card. It was like the second be picked it up, he'd been filled with this anger. The same kind of anger that drove his revenge, like the card was Ai and this stranger was a Knight of Hanoi. He hadn’t realized the anger was there until it was gone. Could a card do that outside of Vrains? </p><p>He looked at the stranger. "No duel. I changed my mind, I don't want it." </p><p>That caught the strange off guard." Are you sure?" </p><p>He looked the stranger over this time. This was clearly a kid still in middle school. Was it safe to give them this card if they said it was dangerous? Well this middle schooler knew more about this card than Yusaku did, clearly. He held it out to the kid. “Take it.”</p><p>("Yuma, why are you hesitating? Take the card before he charges his mind.”) </p><p>The stranger stared at Yusaku as he slowly took it, as if waiting for Yusaku to change his mind, but he took the card easily. </p><p>The stranger blinked up at Yusaku. “How did you resist the Number's control?"</p><p>"Control?" Now that the card was out of Yusaku’s possession, it felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, but he still didn't understand what that meant. </p><p>"These Numbers belong to my friend Astral. He lost them and they're all over the place, and when most people pick them up, they take control of them. People start doing bad stuff. I'm trying to get them back for Astral, but I usually have to duel whoever has them to get them back. But I challenged you to a duel, and you just gave it to me?"</p><p>Yusaku shrugged." I don't know about this cards controlling people business. I don’t know why I wanted to keep the card at all. You wanted to duel, I don't like dueling. </p><p>The stranger pointed at Yogaki's arm, " You have a duel disk?" </p><p>Yusaku shifted his weight. "Appearances can be deceiving. You don't know anything about me. </p><p>"That's true. I've never seen you before. I don't even know your name. Oops! I'm Yuma.” </p><p>“Yusaku." </p><p>(“Fascinating. Yusaku doesn't seem to know how he did it, but he resisted. I would like to observe him and try to figure out how.”)</p><p>"Come on, Astral, don't be creepy," Yuma whispered to the empty air beside him, loud enough for Yusaku to be able to hear easily.</p><p>"Uh…”</p><p>“Oh. Astral, the friend I mentioned before, he's here, too. But for some reason I'm the only person that can see him. Weird, huh?" </p><p>“So you have an imaginary friend.” If it was really Yuma who owned and lost these cards and Astral was made up to blame someone else for it, Yusaku wouldn't be surprised. Middle schoolers were young enough for imaginary friends, right? He couldn't remember. </p><p>("Yuma, ask him if I can learn more about him.”</p><p>“He's not imaginary, I swear -- Astral, stop being weird!" Yuma protested. "Besides, I'm sure Yusaku wants to go home, it's getting dark out!”</p><p>Yusaku looked up to the sky. Yuma was right, twilight was hitting the city and he was no closer to figuring out his own predicament. As a night owl, the time and darkness usually didn't bother Yusaku, but in an unfamiliar area like this he was only going to get more lost. "I suppose I should.” The two of them stood in silence, Yuma staring at Yusaku while Yusaku stood in place.</p><p>“So, are you going home, then? Or…” Yuma spoke eventually. </p><p>“Oh right,” Yusaku blinked. "I don't know where I am or how I got here. So I have no idea how to do that." </p><p>"I can at least tell you where you are! This is Heartland City!" </p><p>Yusaku shook his head. "Never heard of it." Knowing that didn’t help him at all. He’d have to figure it out from there, somehow.</p><p>“I can try to help you figure out how to get back," Yuma offered. "But - oh, my sister's going to be so mad at me if I'm not home soon. You know, there's no school tomorrow, I could help you then. You want to spend the night at my place?" </p><p>Everything about following some kid he barely knew to his house set off extremely loud danger signals in Yusaku’s head. He tried to remind himself he was older now, definitely older than Yuma was, and was more able to take care of himself. </p><p>"It'll be a lot easier for us in the morning," Yuma offered when Yusaku gave no response.</p><p>“...I get bad nightmares. I wake up screaming.” </p><p>"That's okay.” Yuma did not waver in his determination to help. </p><p>“Fine." Yusaku definitely had no friends around here, so he didn't have much of a better choice.</p><p>"Awesome, it’ll be a sleepover! I can't wait!”</p><p>Yuma pulled Yusaku into a surprisingly strong hug for someone shorter than him. Yusaku froze, felt every muscle in his body freeze up. This was about the most uncomfortable thing that could’ve happened.</p><p>Once Yuma realized, he released Yusaku and apologized, but his spirits did not seem dampened at all.</p><p>"So,Yusaku, do you go to the same school as me?"</p><p>(“Yuma, if he's never heard of this city, I highly doubt he goes to school here.”)</p><p>“Astral, I didn't ask you."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Originally, I hadn't committed to writing out one chapter for this story for each day of the event. I'd been inspired by this prompt, which ended up setting this whole thing, but originally this was going to be the entire fic. But then I kept getting inspired by other prompts and here we are, with a fic way longer than I expected to end up with.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Temperature | Locked in a room and you can't leave until you hug</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is the actual day 1 entry, using day 1 prompts:</p><p>Temperature<br/>Locked in a room and you can't leave until you hug</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Yuma wasn't exaggerating when he described this to be a sleepover. The second they reached his house, Yuma was already pulling Yusaku into his bedroom. Yuma already had a sleeping bag for guests stashed in his room, apparently, and he opened it up and laid it out with enough ease that Yusaku was pretty sure that Yuma had guests over overnight constantly. This suspicion would later be confirmed by how little Yuma’s family cared that Yuma had brought someone to stay overnight without asking.  </p><p>The entire time, Yuma rarely ever stopped talking.</p><p>“-and she doesn't really like dueling, either. She gets so mad when she knows I've been dueling. So I bet you two will get along great!" </p><p>“Uh huh.” Yusaku wasn't so sure he’d get along well with Yuma’s older sister just because they had one thing in common, but he didn't really feel like arguing against it.</p><p>Yuma made sure Yusaku had something to eat for dinner and soon the two of them were getting ready for bed. Yusaku obviously had no pajamas with him, and apparently just sleeping in his clothes wasn't an option, so Yuma got his sister to lend Yusaku some pajamas. This was unideal in every way but Yuna was smaller than Yusaku so there was no other choice. </p><p>"It'd be fun to stay up all night talking , but you should probably rest so we can figure out how to get you home. Plus, Grandma always makes sure I'm actually asleep during the night, and I really don't want to get in trouble again." </p><p>That was fine by Yusaku. He wasn't used to actually resting much, but talking all night with anyone was really unappealing. Yusaku had an easier time falling asleep than he thought he would. He slept dreamlessly that night.</p><p>He woke up feeling worse than he felt before falling asleep. His whole body ached worse than sleeping on the floor would cause. His throat was sore and he had a horrible headache. And he was freezing.</p><p>Yusaku curled up as much as he could in the sleeping bag to try to warm up, but he felt like he was outside in the middle of a snowstorm.</p><p>"Are you okay?" Yuma peeked over at Yusaku from his bed. "You look really pale."</p><p>Yusaku shook his head. "I'm fine." He tried to get up from the sleeping bag, but just sitting up knocked the wind out of him. He was drenched in sweat. Catching his breath felt impossible. </p><p>Yuma frowned. "I don't believe you." He jumped out of bed with an ease Yusaku envied. "I'll be right back.” While Yuma was gone, Yusaku took a slow, deep breath. That helped but he was still freezing. He'd at least be warmer in his school uniform, but he didn't see his clothes anywhere. Not in Yuma’s room, anyway. Yuma said he'd be right back, so Yusaku figured he might as well wait where he was.</p><p>He didn't have to wait long. "Grandma says your clothes will be clean soon,” Yuma said as he reentered the room. He was holding something in his hand Yusaku recognized as a thermometer. “She also says you better take your temperature.” </p><p>Yusaku took the thermometer Yuma handed him and shoved it in his ear to take his temperature. Then he had to wait to hear a beep. When the thermometer beeped, he took it out and read the number it said out loud. He couldn't remember off the top of his head what the number was supposed to be, but this was probably close, right?</p><p>The look on Yuma’s face suggested that his internal body temperature was possibly supposed to be a different number. He took the thermometer back from Yusaku, and left his bedroom at top speed. He was gone longer this time. When Yuma returned, he brought more things with him: a couple of blankets, a mug full of soup. </p><p>“So, you're under strict orders to rest until you feel better. At least until your fever goes down, anyway. You looked cold, so I grabbed blankets. That's my sleeping bag for warmer weather... my warmer sleeping bag's been packed away for months. I'm not sure where we put it... Also, my grandma made you soup. She wasn't some what you like or what you can or can't have so she made you noodle soup? If you need something else she can make it but she won't let you get away with not eating."</p><p>Bundled up under the blankets, Yusaku felt a litle warmer, which made a world of difference, but he was still pretty cold. The soup was good, though. Easy on the stomach and refreshing. After he finished it, Yuma replaced the soup mug with a glass of water and sat on the floor next to Yusaku. </p><p>“We’ll figure out how to get you home when you're better," Yuma told him. "I promise." </p><p>Yusaku nodded. As much as he wanted to get out of here and back to his apartment, he was starting to accept the fact that he wouldn't make it far outside Yuma’s house. He could hear Kolter in his head telling him to take the day off and rest for once.</p><p>“Astral still wants to know how you resisted the Number," Yuma went on. “And I'm kinda curious, too, since no one’s ever given up a Number to us without dueling for it before? Astral's current theory is that you're from another world, or something. Astral's from another world, you know. You don't look weird, like Astral does, but I guess it's still possible.”</p><p>("Human beings are the ones that look odd to me, Yuma.")</p><p>Yusaku's headache got worse, like someone was pounding on his head with a hammer. Was that what happened? Was Yusaku somehow sent to another world? It didn't seem all that different from the world he knew, but appearances could be deceiving.</p><p>"I don't know," was all Yusaku could say. "You said that card was trying to possess me? I felt strange after I picked the card up. Heavy and angry over...” Anger was something Yusaku was familiar with, it had been lurking just under the surface for years, but it always had a purpose, a reason. The Number in his hand, Yuma warning him not to pick it up, Yusaku wasn't sure why he had felt so angry then. He’d felt a strong desire to keep the card. “It felt like the card wanted me to keep it." But Yusaku only dueled for good reason. "But I don't like dueling. If I needed to duel people to keep it, I didn't want it. Now I want it even less." Getting possessed by a card was far from ideal.</p><p>"Well, Astral say for now we won't throw out that theory,” Yuma said, "For all we know , maybe it's just because you don't wanna duel. But we shouldn't worry about it right now. We gotta get you healthy first."</p><p>As adamant as Yuma was that Yusaku needed to rest, he sure had no intention of letting Yusaku actually rest. He kept flitting from one topic to the next. He tried to ask Yusaku about why he didn't like to duel. But Yusaku refused to answer, and apparently Astral ended up telling Yuma to drop it. Yuma asked Yusaku about his school and home, complained about a test he'd had to take the other day, and rambled about his friends. In the middle of talking about his friends, Yuma stopped talking for the first time in a while. Yusaku had begun to wonder if Yuma actually needed to breathe while talking or not. In some ways, Yuma reminded Yusaku of what a younger Shima might be like. </p><p>Yuma reached up to hold his pendant in his hands " My dad gave me this key. It's what connects Astral and me now, but before we met it always helped me when I wasn't feeling so hot.” Yuma took the pendant, the key, off from around his neck and placed it on the blanket next to Yusaku. " Maybe it can help you, too.”</p><p>Yusaku spent a long time laying there , listening to Yuma talk. Once in a while the pain in his head would throb. He never complained, but Yuma seemed to notice each time and would push Yusaku’s cup of water closer to him with a frown.</p><p>(“Yuma, something strange is going on. Have you noticed it?")</p><hr/><p>Yusaku didn't even remember falling asleep. But the next thing he knew, he was waking up. Yuma’s face was the only thing in his field of vision between him and the ceiling. </p><p>"Hey, Yusaku, guess what?” Yuma was grinning. He held a thermometer in front of Yusaku’s face so he could see the reading; it was a different thermometer than before, it looked like it worked on the forehead. "Your fever's gone!" </p><p>Yusaku blinked, trying to stay awake. He did feel better than before. That headache was still there, but the rest of his aches and pains were gone, and he no longer felt like he was freezing to death. </p><p>“Good, Now I can figure out how to get home."</p><p>“Before we start that, though, there's one little test we gotta do to make sure you're really better," Yuma said.</p><p>"And what's that?" Yusaku asked.</p><p>“The hug test!" Yuma spread his arms wide. “If you're feeling better, then you're feeling up for a hug!"</p><p>"And if I refuse?"</p><p>“Then you have to stay here all day.” Yuma stuck his tongue out. "I won't let you leave.” </p><p>Sometimes Yuma reminded Yusaku of Shima, but at other times like this, he reminded Yusaku more of Ai. "...Fine."</p><p>As Yusaku stood up, Yuma held his arms wide open to pull Yusaku into a big hug. Yusaku awkwardly rested his arms loosely around Yuma’s shoulders.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I handwrote the first 3 chapters of Dimension Gate. This is the second chapter of 3 I wrote out by hand, next chapter being the last, and the rest of Dimension Gate was all typed up digitally. Thank goodness. It's a lot easier to handle that way. If you notice any formatting issues in these first 3 chapters, that's why. They shouldn't reoccur after next chapter. </p><p>Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it!! Next part should post tomorrow!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Don't Touch Me | "I don't want your help!"</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The day 2 entry! This chapter makes use of the entries:</p><p>Don't Touch Me<br/>"I don't want your help!"</p><p>As well as introducing new characters! Don't get your hopes up for any new Vrains characters right now, though...</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“What do you mean you don't like hugs?"</p><p>"I don't like people touching me. At all.”</p><p>Yusaku walked ahead of Yuma, pulling on the jacket of his school uniform. His hands had gone into muscle memory to loosely tie his tie around his neck. Pulling it too tightly felt uncomfortable, like a noose around his neck, but this made him look more sloppy and disheveled. He didn't dislike that. It seemed to be a fairly average look for boys his age. Yuma, meanwhile, had just changed out of his school uniform and into an outfit similar to what he'd worn when he met Yusaku; Yuma had just gotten out at school. For some reason, Yuma had thought it was a good idea to let Yusaku sleep until he got home, rather than wake him up so he could begin his search to get home. Yusaku didn't need that much rest. Between that and Yuma’s apparent constant desire for physical contact, he was a little annoyed. </p><p>“How can you not like hugs? They’re good for the soul!" </p><p>"Alright, boys, hold it right there." </p><p>Both boys turned around to look up at Yuma’s older sister, Kari. Most of her red hair was kept back in a ponytail, but her bangs framed her face . Like Yuma, she had some strands of pink hair, a fact that made Yusaku pull self-consciously at the pink strands in his own hair. She always seemed to stick to casual clothes since she was old enough to be done with school. She wore a nice blouse under a hooded vest, as well as galaxy print leggings. Kari sighed, her attention focused on Yuma. "Yuma, leave him alone and apologize.” </p><p>"But Kari- "</p><p>Kari cut him off. "I thought we taught you better than this, Yuma. No means no, If he doesn't like being touched, that's all there is to it."</p><p>Yuma turned to Yusaku, biting his lip. "You're right, Kari... Sorry, Yusaku.”</p><p>Yusaku shrugged. "It's okay," As long as Yuma backed off in the future, that was all that mattered in the end, he supposed.</p><p>Kari kept her attention on Yuma. "Now, is your room clean, or did you leave your clothes all over the place when you changed?"</p><p>"I'll, uh..." Yuma gulped. "I'll be right back!! " He dashed back towards his room at top-speed.</p><p>Kari rolled her eyes. "Sorry about him,” she said to Yusaku. "I know he can be a lot."</p><p>Yusaku blinked. "Why is he so..."</p><p>"He's just like this with all his friends. And he's made a lot of new friends, lately. He insists anyone he duels is his friend. He's brought over more new friends in the past couple of months then I can count.”</p><p>“I'm not his friend. We didn't even duel; I declined his challenge." </p><p>"That's probably enough for him.” Kari sighed. "I wish he wouldn’t duel so much. I know I'm hard on him about it, but someone has to be." She frowned at Yusaku. "He said you don't like to duel."</p><p>"Bad experiences." Yusaku shrugged, He refused to get any more specific than that, but he had a bit of respect for their mutual dislike of the game. "He said you don't like it either.”</p><p>“Most of it's because of him," Kari admitted. "Don't get me wrong, I love my little brother a lot. But that's actually the problem. Mom and Dad told me that dueling was going to put him in danger. I don't want to see him get hurt.” She sniffed. "I don't want to lose him. He's..." She sounded too upset to keep going from there. Yusaku didn't know how to respond to that.</p><p>Right in that moment, Yuma ran back into the room. “Okay okay, my room's clean now. Can we go?”</p><p>She recovered fast. "Fine, but you better be back before dark. You can't be late for dinner, and you still have homework to do!"</p><p>"Yeah, yeah, I'll do it!” Yuma said in a tone that sounded like he'd already forgotten about the homework. "Come on Yusaku, you gotta meet Bronk and Tori!" </p><p>Tori and Bronk turned out to be two of Yuma’s friends. The three of them were in the same class, and Yuma and Bronk dueled against each other a lot. </p><p>“The five us us can figure this out together for sure," Yuma declared after they all met up in a local park. Yusaku was confused about Yuma's math for a second, until he remembered the apparent existence of Astral. “Right .. " Tori placed her hands on her hips. "So what's your master plan to figure this out,Yuma?"</p><p>Yuma stared blankly at her.</p><p>“Figured.” Tori stuck her tongue out at Yuma, then looked more softly at Yusaku. "What about you, Yusaku? Any thoughts?</p><p>Yusaku’s first instinct was always to hack his way out of his problems. “I'd see what I can find out on a computer, but I left mine at home and Kari is busy with hers." And Kolter’s hacking hot dog truck was at the same place Yusaku’s computer was: home.</p><p>“Finally, someone with a brain,” Tori said. "You're in high school, so of course you'd be smarter than Yuma.” Yusaku knew better than to make an assumption like that. "There's computers at the library we can use. And the library's close by.” </p><p>"Libraries make me itchy," Yuma mumbled. </p><p>“Just because you don't like to read doesn't mean they can't be helpful!" Brank laughed. </p><p>When they got to the library, Tori jumped onto the first computer they found. "So, Yusaku, where are you from?"</p><p>"Den City."</p><p>Tori typed the city into a search on the Internet, but no results came up. Den City apparently didn't exist. "Uh..." </p><p>"That can't be right,” Yusaku reached around Tori to type other queries in to the search. He wasn't stupid enough to search for himself. He went out of his way to make himself as unmemorable and invisible as possible. But he tried other things. Den City High School. Akira Zaizen. SOL Technologies. Playmaker. Blue Angel. Link Vrains. It all came up with nothing. "There's no way…”</p><p>(“Maybe he really is from another world.”)</p><p>Pain throbbed in Yusaku’s head. This couldn't be right. "It's like my entire life just doesn't exist…” What was he supposed to do without Kolter or Ai? Who was he supposed to be if the Lost Incident never happened or if he wasn’t Playmaker? Now what did he do? </p><p>Yuma, Tori, and Bronk each shared a look. “We'll just have to work even harder to help you get back home, then.” </p><p>"I don't even know if I can get home.” If he remembered how he got here, he could at least try reverse engineering that, but Yusaku didn’t even have that much. He was alone, in a strange place where he didn't exist. He had nothing here to drive him, no reason to keep going. “I have nothing to go on,” Yusaku muttered to himself. "What’s the point?"</p><p>“There's still a chance. It's small, but as long as it's there it's worth trying. We can't give up yet,” Yuma insisted.</p><p>Yusaku stared blankly at him. "’We'? I never said I wanted your help. Actually, I don't want your help.” All he was doing was wasting their time. “Just leave me alone." </p><p>Tori and Bronk actually laughed at that. "You really don't get it, do you?” Tori asked. "Asking Yuma not to help someone is like telling a bird not to fly." </p><p>"It's about feeling the flow!" Yuma added. "And right now, I’m feeling it. Now that we're friends, I'm not giving up. I don't care if you think it's hopeless, Yusaku. It might look that way, but there's always hope deep down if you look hard enough. We're going to get you home."</p><p>"Now that you're friends with Yuma, you can't get out of it,” Bronk added. “Yuma always does everything he can to help his friends. And any friend of Yuma's a friend of ours, too, so now you're stuck with all of us." </p><p>Yusaku couldn't really get it. His idea of friendship was clearly different from theirs. But he could see he couldn't talk them out of it. "If you're not going to give up, I guess I have no choice. It looks like I can't give up, either." </p><p>"Great!" Yuma pumped his fist into the air. “Can we do a group hug?" </p><p>Some part of Yusaku felt like he needed it. "Yeah." </p><p>The three of them gathered next to Yusaku and brought him into a gentle but firm hug. Comforting and grounding. For a moment, Yusaku really believed they might be able to get him back home.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Working on this story has made me way more passionate about Kari and Yuma’s relationship than I ever was before. It was hard not to delve too deep into it in this story, I had to hold myself back and cut back a lot, since it’s not the main focus of this story... but another time.</p><p>Thanks for reading so far! I hope you enjoyed!</p>
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<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Things You Said in a Dream | Three Things | Favorite Food | "Oh no I seem to have accidentally fallen on top of you and now am too lazy to move. What a tragedy."</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>For this entry I ended up hitting four prompts between two prompt lists:</p><p>Things You Said in a Dream<br/>Three Things<br/>Favorite Food<br/>"Oh no I seem to have accidentally fallen on top of you and now am too lazy to move. What a tragedy."</p><p>I think my original plan had been to incorporate the first and third prompts I used, and then I ended up working even more in. </p><p>For anyone familiar with Vrains, this is nothing new, but this entry hits on some Vrains backstory, which involves the nightmares/childhood trauma/ptsd stuff tagged for this story. Nightmares aren't actually shown but are described. If you'd like to avoid that stuff, you can skip to the line break and should be okay after that. This warning might not be necessary but I'd rather be safe than sorry, especially on the off chance someone who has watched zexal but not vrains is reading.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Yusaku woke up screaming.</p><p>When his eyes were closed, all he could see was a completely white room. All he could remember was the duels he was constantly forced to go through, all he could feel was desperation, the pain and punishment that came with losing. He couldn’t breathe. Now he was awake and he didn’t recognize anything in the room around him. That only made him feel worse. Where was he? He couldn’t calm down, he couldn’t breathe.</p><p>A face floated in front of his. He didn’t recognize it. The face glowed white, with different colored eyes. “Is he sick again?” the face asked. “He doesn’t look good.”</p><p>Yusaku screamed again and scooted back on the floor, away from the stranger. This wasn’t home. Why wasn’t he home?</p><p>“What’s going on?” A different voice, off to the side. Another face entered Yusaku’s field of vision. He recognized this one: Yuma. Yuma looked towards the stranger.</p><p>“He woke up and kept screaming,” the stranger reported. “He did say he gets nightmares. For a second, though, it appeared he was looking directly at me, as if he could see me. Then he screamed again.”</p><p>“That’s silly, no one else can see you,” Yuma muttered. He looked at Yusaku. “It must have been a nightmare? But, um, I don’t know what to do?” His voice got louder. “I should do something, right??”</p><p>Yusaku’s heart was racing. Breathing was difficult. He felt like Yuma and the stranger were several rooms away. But slowly, his mind started working again. This was Yuma’s room. Yuma was letting him stay here. He’d been dreaming before. The incident was in the past. He had to pull himself out of it.</p><p>“Three reasons,” Yusaku managed to get out, “to keep going.” He looked down at his hands. Shakily, he held up a finger. “We need to save Kolter’s brother. We have to help him.” Another. “Ai and Kolter don’t know where I am.” Another. “There’s still a chance… I can get back to Den City.” With each reason, he calmed down a little bit. Breathing got easier. The world around him felt more real. He forced himself to take deep breaths. He took in the scene around him.</p><p>Yuma was crouched on the floor next to him. That stranger Yusaku had seen before was real, apparently, and still there. The floating was real, too, so apparently whoever this was could just float in the air, which was weird. Yusaku could feel how sweaty he was. The blankets and the sleeping bag he must’ve thrown off himself in his sleep, because he didn’t feel any different now than he had before he backed away. No difference in the amount of weight on him or how warm he was. It was dark, probably the middle of the night. Yuma looked tired, but still concerned. Yusaku felt bad for waking him.</p><p>Yusaku rubbed the back of his neck, feeling itchy. “It’s nothing,” he told Yuma. “Just a nightmare. I get them all the time. Don’t worry about it.”</p><p>“Of course I’m worried about it!” Yuma shot back. “‘Just’ a nightmare? You don’t look good at all, for a moment you looked more like a cornered wild animal or something than someone who just woke up. You looked scared. You shouldn’t have to feel scared.”</p><p>“Doesn’t matter if I should or not. It’s just the way it is.” Yusaku shrugged. Whatever was ideal meant nothing compared to reality. “I’m probably just not used to waking up in your room. This happened multiple times after I moved to my apartment. It’s nothing.”</p><p>“It’s something all right.” Yuma sighed. “What kind of nightmares are you even getting that you’re reacting this badly to them?”</p><p>“Real world experience. From the past.”</p><p>“What happened?”</p><p>Yusaku looked away. As a rule, he didn’t talk to anyone about the Lost Incident besides people that were involved and understood, like Kolter, or Ai. Yusaku didn’t open up to people. He generally avoided interacting with people at all. Nobody uninvolved could really understand. Plus, now he had his identity as Playmaker to worry about. Opening up to people, connecting himself to the Lost Incident, it ran the risk of someone figuring out who he was. And Playmaker needed to be anonymous. Playmaker was a criminal. Yusaku couldn’t keep doing what he was doing if the wrong person figured him out, and anyone could be that wrong person.</p><p>But here, in Heartland City, the Lost Incident didn’t exist. It never happened. Yusaku didn’t exist, and neither did Playmaker. So discussing the Lost Incident couldn’t possibly get him in trouble here. He looked at Yuma again. Something told him that Yuma might not understand, but he’d at least try. At least, he wouldn’t judge Yusaku badly. Usually opening up backfired for Yusaku, but maybe this time it wouldn’t. </p><p>“I was kidnapped when I was 6.” With those words out, Yusaku couldn’t stop, so he kept going. He didn’t look at Yuma as he explained what happened, but out of the corner of the eye he could see the stranger floating above them. The stranger didn’t seem judgemental, though, they just looked down at him and listened with a curious expression on their face. “After a few months, we were found and rescued,” Yusaku finished. “But I still have nightmares about it 10 years later. I’ve never really been able to move on.”</p><p>“That’s awful.” Yuma teared up. “I’m sorry something like that happened. If I was there, I’d…”</p><p>“You would have been way too young to do anything about it if you were even alive then,” Yusaku pointed out. </p><p>“Hey, I would have been 1!!” Yuma puffed out his cheeks. “Who cares how old I was, I would’ve done something no matter what! Age means nothing if I’m feeling the flow.”</p><p>“Whatever.” Yusaku rolled his eyes. “What’s done is done. It doesn’t matter either way.”</p><p>“Of course it matters,” Yuma protested. “If you have nightmares about it and it still hurts you, then it matters, because you matter.  Well, in this case, there’s only one thing to do.” Yuma collapsed on the floor next to Yusaku.</p><p>“What are you doing?”</p><p>“Oh no, it looks like I’ve accidentally fallen on top of you, and now I’m too lazy to move. Guess I’m stuck here all night. Maybe you’ll sleep better if I’m here next to you.”</p><p>Yuma wrapped his arms around Yusaku in a hug, further cementing the fact that he was really going to stay there all night.</p><p>Yusaku sighed. He wasn’t going to be able to push Yuma away from him, and even if he did he knew by now that Yuma would just come back. He might as well live with it.</p><p>Still, something was bothering him. He pointed up at the stranger above them. “Do you know who that is?”</p><p>Yuma looked from Yusaku, to the stranger, then back to Yusaku, then to the stranger again. “Wait, you can see Astral??”</p><p>“Most peculiar.” The stranger-- Astral-- brought a hand up to his chin. “No humans besides Yuma have been able to see me so far. Have you been able to see me the whole time, or is now the first time?”</p><p>“I saw you when I woke up. Not before then.”</p><p>“I wonder what prompted this change?” Astral asked. “I’ve spent more time around Yuma’s other friends than you, but they still cannot see me. Maybe there’s something special about you.”</p><p>It seemed like Astral wasn’t an imaginary friend after all. Yusaku didn’t appreciate the comment about Yuma being his friend, but he was too tired to point it out or to think about why he could suddenly see Astral when he couldn’t before. All he could do was fall back asleep, pulled back towards it by the extra warmth Yuma’s arms provided him.</p><hr/><p>Yusaku woke up to the smell of something burning. He checked the time: it was fairly early in the day. Who was burning something this early? He looked around the room. Astral and Yuma weren’t here, so it was entirely possible that Yuma was the culprit. Figuring he better go check on him, Yusaku got up and followed the smell to its source in the kitchen.</p><p>He found Yuma in the house’s kitchen, perched over a pot on the stove. In a panic, he tried to grab it off the stove before yelping from pain. Yusaku sighed. If something had been cooking in the pot, then clearly it was hot and not to be touched with bare hands. Only a fool would do something like that.</p><p>Astral floated above Yuma, watching his work. “Interesting. Observation: contact with metal can sometimes cause pain to humans.”</p><p>“It’s because it’s hot,” Yusaku clarified. He walked across the kitchen to close the distance between himself and Yuma and Astral. “If you touch something really hot, it burns you.” Yusaku stared at Yuma. “What’s going on?”</p><p>“Oh. Uh.” Yuma blew on the part of his hand that touched the pot. “It’s kind of a complicated story.”</p><p>“I have time.” </p><p>“Well… You were talking in your sleep. About hot dogs?? It sounded kind of like you liked them, or at least, that’s what Astral thought. So I thought maybe if I made some hot dogs it would cheer you up? I mean, you had a bad nightmare last night, and being stranded in some other world has to be stressful for you. You know? But I kind of accidentally burned them…” Yuma laughed nervously. “So much for that, huh?”</p><p>“You never cooked hot dogs for me, Yuma.”</p><p>“You can’t eat human food, Astral! We already tried!”</p><p>Talking in his sleep? As far as Yusaku was aware, he didn’t talk in his sleep much. Maybe being in Heartland City was causing something weird to happen to him. Maybe that was why he could see Astral now. But he had been dreaming. It had been a nicer dream for once. He was visiting Kolter at Cafe Nom, like none of this ever happened. It was...nice, actually. He missed that more than he’d think he would. And Kolter did give him a hot dog in his dream…</p><p>Yusaku spent more time around Kolter than he did anyone else. He included school in that as well, since Yusaku skipped classes occasionally and Kolter and Yusaku pulled more all-nighters together than anyone else probably should. And now, Kolter wouldn’t let Yusaku pay for hot dogs and coffee anymore (though he did try to limit the amount of coffee Yusaku drank). He pretended to keep some sort of running tab for Yusaku while refusing to let him pay any amount of it off. And Yusaku only started eating hot dogs in the first place to have a reason to be at Cafe Nom that was actually legal, but by now they’d grown to be his favorite food. Yusaku did tend to stick to eating cheaper food anyway. Yet, hot dogs were still the winner. Some days he barely ate anything else.</p><p>Yusaku stared at the pot of burnt hot dogs. All burnt food smelled bad, and hot dogs were no exception. They weren’t going to be edible. It was a disaster on all accounts. But Yuma had done it thinking of him. Yuma’d gone out of his way to do something he wasn’t asked to do for him, with nothing for Yuma himself to gain from it. Yusaku didn’t know how to respond to that. Friends did this kind of thing for each other, right? Yusaku was rarely on the receiving end of something like this, and never on the giving end. That required having friends at all.</p><p>“Thank you,” Yusaku managed. Hopefully that was good enough.</p><p>“For what?” Yuma sounded confused. “For burning your hot dogs? That’s a weird thing to thank someone for. What, do they eat burnt hot dogs where you’re from?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Then what are you thanking me for?”</p><p>Yusaku sighed. “Nevermind.”</p><p>“I believe that Yusaku was actually thanking you for the sentiment rather than the hot dogs themselves, Yuma,” Astral explained.</p><p>“I didn’t send anyone mints,” Yuma said.</p><p>“Nevermind.” Astral sighed.</p><hr/><p>Yusaku dreamed again the next night. It wasn’t a nightmare. It wasn’t a dream of what he missed.</p><p>Earlier that day, Yuma had helped Yusaku look for a way home after school. It was difficult without having idea how Yusaku arrived in this world in the first place. The only idea they could think of was based on Astral being from another world as well. Apparently, as Yuma and Astral gathered Number cards, Astral began to regain memories as well. (Interesting, that Yusaku and Astral had both lost memories upon arriving in his world.) Astral suggested that the key might be within his lost memories. So, Yusaku ended up actually helping Yuma and Astral look for Numbers. They had no luck that day, though.</p><p>The dream Yusaku had wasn’t far off. He was trying to help Yuma deal with Numbers. Dreams could be nonsensical, however, and Yusaku’s dream often didn’t make sense. Sometimes, rather than Heartland City, he found himself in Den City, Link Vrains, and other places Yusaku couldn’t remember ever seeing before. </p><p>No matter where they were, Yuma kept dragging Yusaku along with him in his search. They seemed to be in a rush. But even though they never found anything before Yusaku woke up, Yusaku never felt too annoyed about the whole situation.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I'm really playing loose with the Link Sense that Yusaku has... In canon it helps Yusaku get a sense of what's happening in Vrains while he's logged out. I've interpreted that extremely loosely as 'Yusaku can sense things from other worlds', and Astral is from another world. Yusaku couldn't see Astral immediately, but he has had reactions to Astral's voice before. This is very likely not how it actually works, but in this case I decided it did because I wanted Yusaku to meet Astral.</p><p>I've also really, really enjoyed writing the banter between Yusaku and Astral in this story, and I think this chapter is a really good instance of that.</p><p>I hope you're enjoying the story so far! Thanks for reading!</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Family | "I can't remember my parents' faces." | "I'm used to being alone, so it's fine."</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is the day 4 entry! The prompts used for this one are:<br/>Family<br/>"I can't remember my parents' faces."<br/>"I'm used to being alone, so it's fine."</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Yusaku kicked a rock lightly as he walked down the path behind Yuma, his hands in his pockets. Over the past few days, Yuma had been giving Yusaku a casual tour of the city while they kept an eye out for Numbers.</p><p>“Oh, there’s some litterbots.” Yuma pointed over to their left at a group of robots picking garbage up from the ground. “They’re these robots that go around the city and pick up garbage people have dropped. I’m not really a big fan of them, though. They keep thinking I’m garbage and they’ll pick me up and… It’s gross.”</p><p>Yusaku shrugged. “The robots would know better than me.”</p><p>“Hey, come on, you're supposed to be on my side!” Yuma protested.</p><p>Yusaku looked away, now staring at the litterbots. He could just barely hear them talking as they did their duty. They didn’t look like anything he’d seen in Den City, but something about them reminded him of…</p><p>“Are you listening to me? Hey, uh, are you okay?” Yuma looked up at Yusaku’s face with a frown. Then he followed Yusaku’s gaze to the litterbots. “Do you have those where you’re from, too?”</p><p>“No.” Yusaku paused for a moment “I’m probably just homesick or something. For some reason, those litterbots remind me of Roboppy.”</p><p>“Who’s Roboppy?”</p><p>“They’re a little cleaning robot I have. They’re very common around the city I live in. I built my Roboppy myself and edited their programming to give them a bit of a personality.”</p><p>“Whoa, that’s really cool! You gotta be really smart to do something like that.” Yuma frowned. “Do you miss Roboppy?”</p><p>“...I don’t know.” That was difficult to figure out. “It’s not like I wish they were here, but… Every day, after I came home, Roboppy would greet me. They’d be happy to see me. I’ve been so used to it that I never gave it a second thought until I ended up here and haven’t been able to see them. I think I just...miss that part of my routine.”</p><p>“Hmm. I could say hi to you whenever you come home.”</p><p>“I only leave the house when I’m with you, so that wouldn’t make any sense.” Yusaku rolled his eyes. “Besides, you’re not Roboppy.”</p><p>Yuma opened his mouth to respond, but he was interrupted. That’s when they spotted the first person with a Number Yusaku had seen since he met Yuma.</p><p>Their eyes glowed red, and there was a strange glow around the rest of their body.</p><p>“Numbers amplify the darkest desires of their host,” Astral explained quietly to Yusaku while Yuma loudly confronted the other person. “When they possess you, they block out everything else. When you resisted the Number you held, that’s what you overcame. It seems most humans cannot.”</p><p>Yusaku looked at Astral with a frown.</p><p>He could tell that Number he’d had was powerful when he held it. He’d wanted to keep it, even without knowing if it would work well with his deck or any of his cards at all. But the card seemed like it could’ve been a useful tool for his goals. Why did he want to keep it? How much of it was because he didn’t like to duel, and how much was because he’d already committed to walking into a path of darkness long ago? After all, he’d never set out specifically to be a ‘good guy’. That’s just how it worked out.</p><p>Astral looked away from Yusaku. “Well, the only way forward is to win this Number in a duel. You should stay out of this; it’s dangerous to duel a Number without one of your own. They can only be defeated by other Numbers. Yuma and I can take care of this.”</p><p>Yusaku had no objections to that. He certainly wasn’t eager to jump into a duel.</p><p>“Yeah, we got this, no problem! You can cheer for us!” Yuma ran over to Astral and Yusaku. “Hey, Yusaku, where’s your Duel Gazer?”</p><p>“My what?”</p><p>Yusaku already knew that this place didn’t have a virtual duel world like he was familiar with. But apparently, duels here made use of augmented reality technology. In order to see what was happening in the duel, you needed to look through some accessory. That set off several red flags in Yusaku’s head.</p><p>“I’ll pass,” he told Yuma once the whole thing had been explained to him.</p><p>“But you won't be able to see me crush this guy.”</p><p>“My ears work perfectly fine,” Yusaku said. Right now, he had no interest in seeing anything using augmented reality. Listening would be good enough.</p><p>The duel was difficult to watch. Yusaku envied the way Yuma could have fun dueling no matter what. Really, he did. Yusaku hadn’t been able to experience that since he was much younger than Yuma, and he suspected he wouldn’t be able to for many years to come if he ever would be able to at all. But Yusaku did used to enjoy the game, and he wished he could have fun again now. Watching Yuma have fun wasn’t the difficult part. What made this hard for Yusaku was how unprepared Yuma had come to this duel, knowing he would have to duel again soon and knowing how important it would be to win.</p><p>At least Astral knew what he was doing, but ultimately Yuma made all the final decisions between the two of them and Yuma had a tendency to get annoyed by Astral’s suggestions and ignore them. </p><p>Yusaku could barely breathe through the close calls that Yuma barely made it through. Yuma didn’t know a lot of his own cards’ effects. At one point, Yuma tried to play a trap card face-up in his monster zone. Trap monsters still had to follow the rules of traps. (“But it says when you play it to summon it like it’s a monster!” “Yuma, that only takes place after you activate the trap like you would any other trap.”)</p><p>In the end, however, Yuma and Astral were able to win the duel and take the Number back. Astral didn’t remember any significant memories from the Number; nothing helpful for Astral nor Yusaku.</p><p>Yuma ran to Yusaku after the duel. He didn’t seem fazed by any of the mistakes or close calls from his duel.</p><p>“That duel was so much fun!” Yuma yelled. “It was a tough one, but I was feeling the flow, and my dad’s cards came through like they always do!”</p><p>“Your dad’s cards?” Yusaku asked.</p><p>“Yeah.” Yuma closed his right hand around the key hanging from his neck. “This used to be my dad’s, too.” He stared off into the distance, his voice growing softer and quieter than Yusaku had heard it since they met. “Carrying around this key and using my dad’s deck, it’s like he’s here with me. They remind me of everything he taught me.” He frowned. “My… Both my parents disappeared. I know they’re still out there somewhere, they gotta be, but it’s still hard not having them here, sometimes. Using his cards helps.”</p><p>Yuma had been upbeat, stubborn, and cheerful the entire time Yusaku had been in Heartland City. But on this topic, all of that seemed to strip away from Yuma, leaving him melancholy and vulnerable. Deep down, it seemed Yuma stubbornly refused to call anything impossible because hope was the only thing he could do.</p><p>Asking about Yuma’s deck had led them into a topic that seemed difficult for Yuma. Yusaku felt bad; he hadn’t meant to hurt him.</p><p>It struck Yusaku how similar their situations were...and yet, completely the opposite. Yusaku was the one who went missing, while for Yuma, it was his parents. Yuma never gave up hope his parents were out there. Yusaku wondered if that was how his parents felt back them. Of course, after he was rescued…</p><p>Yuma sniffed. “I shouldn’t mope about my own problems to you when you’ve got plenty of your own. Yours are probably so worried about you.”</p><p>For a moment, Yusaku forgot how to breathe.It seemed like parents still happened to be a sore spot for him as well. At least when the topic was his own parents. He cleared his throat. He needed to say something. (He didn’t see how his problems could be considered any more important than Yuma’s right now.) “I wouldn’t know.”</p><p>“Are your parents missing, too?” Yuma asked.</p><p>Yusaku shrugged. “Maybe. I haven’t seen them in years.” 10, to be exact. Not that it mattered or anything. “After I was rescued, they just weren’t there. They never came back.” His words got stuck in his throat. Yuma clearly looked up to his father, had found memories and a lot of love for his parents. As for Yusaku… “I can’t even remember my parents’ faces.”</p><p>“That’s awful.” Yuma looked devastated by the information. He lightly touched Yusaku’s arm, trying to offer comfort without overdoing it. </p><p>Yusaku didn’t push him away. “I’m used to being alone, so it’s fine.”</p><p>“That’s not true!” Yuma insisted. “Just because you’re used to it doesn’t make it okay. I’m used to my parents not being here, but that doesn’t make it okay. I miss them constantly. Kari misses them. My grandma misses them. It’s not good to be alone.” He paused. “If you’re used to being alone, you probably don’t have siblings, do you?”</p><p>“Not last I knew, which was a decade ago.” Yusaku hummed in thought. “I think the closest I’ve got is… Kolter’s brother was a victim of that incident, too.” No need to specify any further on Jin’s current state when that was private, and not Yusaku’s story to tell. “Kolter and I have been working together. We met because we both needed to figure out the truth behind what happened. Kolter also sells hot dogs for a living; he won’t let me pay him for hot dogs anymore, and he keeps a close eye on me. He tries to prevent me from overworking myself and tries to make me take care of myself.”</p><p>“He’s like an older brother to you, too,” Yuma commented. </p><p>Yusaku didn’t like to think about it. As a rule, he didn’t get close to anyone. Anyone who came close to him could be put in danger, and no one deserved that. He’d tried to push Kolter away several times when they first met, but Kolter was too persistent. He still felt guilty letting Kolter get involved, and the more he thought about his relationship with Kolter, the heavier that guilt felt. He only ever referred to Kolter as his acquaintance to keep anyone to think they were close, to keep him from worrying so much. Kolter was fully aware of any danger and signed up to work with Yusaku anyway, so worrying was pointless.</p><p>“I guess family doesn’t have to always be the people related to you by blood.” Yusaku shrugged. He didn’t confirm nor deny Yuma’s comment. “Sometimes you find people that are a better fit.” It wasn’t hard to be a better fit than someone who never found him again, honestly.</p><p>Yuma beamed. “Anyone can be family! As long as you have someone, you’re not alone.” He pulled Yusaku into a hug. “I’m glad you have someone. If nobody missed you, if you didn’t have anyone where you came from, I don’t know if I’d want you to go back, but… I’m happy to get you home since you do. You belong in the world you came from, and…and I get the feeling you and that hot dog guy need each other.”</p><p>Yusaku lightly wrapped an arm around Yuma. He didn’t know what to say since he was so wrapped up in his own thoughts.</p><p>Here, the incident never happened, and Yusaku wasn’t Playmaker. He still wasn’t exactly sure where that left him. But he had less of a reason to keep up a distance from everyone here since relationships wouldn’t put anyone in danger. He found himself relieved that Yuma still had a family even without his parents, and… He found himself relieved that Yuma was here to help him now. That he wasn’t doing this alone. </p><p>In a way, Yuma was starting to almost feel like a younger brother to him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>There it is, the first duel. By which I mean, the briefest description of a duel that Yuma wins. It's not much, but it's honest work.</p><p>If you're left hungry for more dueling, don't worry... just wait unti tomorrow. ;) The next chapter was the second idea for a prompt I came up with for hugsaku, and is a big part of why I ended up writing all of this instead of just leaving it at chapter 1. </p><p>If you're begging for less dueling... I apologize.</p><p>Thanks for reading, I hope you've enjoyed this story!!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Awkward Hugs | Dueling But The Last Blow Is A Hug</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Here's day 5! The prompts I used were:<br/>Awkward Hug<br/>Dueling But The Last Blow Is A Hug</p><p>This was the second idea I had for hugsaku, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. This chapter's longer than a lot of the others, it's over 4,000 words long, so make sure you got a good minute to read it.</p><p>Edit: 3/3/2021: fixed a typo and some confusing wording</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The four of them were doing research together in a park when another one appeared.</p><p>It was Tori who had taken the books out from the library. Given she was the biggest reader out of herself, Bronk, and Yuma, she was the only one with a library card. She brought the books to the park and the three of them, alongside Yusaku, read through them.</p><p>All the books looked like they discussed the idea that other worlds existed out there somewhere. Their hope was that they discussed how to get to those worlds so they could find a clue.</p><p>To help Astral remember his past. To help Yusaku get home.</p><p>A lot of books on the subject weren’t really intended for a younger audience. Yusaku seemed to be having an easier time reading through his book than everyone else was. Everyone else other than maybe Yuma, who was cheating and having Astral read his book for him. It wasn’t that Yusaku was overly interested in the subject, Astral was definitely more interested than he was. But Yusaku had read through lengthier, more complicated material to learn the knowledge he needed to see his revenge through. He was used to this.</p><p>The book was deep in an explanation of the possibility of other dimensions and what they could be like when they all heard the commotion.</p><p>That’s when they chased after its source, and that’s when they found another Number.</p><p>Yuma took the Number on, of course. His opponent didn’t take long to summon the Number. Rank 2, 100 Attack. This Number didn’t seem that threatening on the surface, but Yusaku knew better. XYZ Monsters were always more than just their stats. That’s what they had Overlay Units for, and this Number still had all of its own.</p><p>Yuma summoned Utopia on his next turn. Immediately after, he entered the battle phase. His victory seemed assured in his eyes, but Yusaku wasn’t so sure about that.</p><p>Neither were Yuma’s friends. Bronk, Tori, and Astral each yelled out their own warnings, but Yuma ignored them all. He declared an attack with Utopia against the other Number and…</p><p>The monster was destroyed, the other duelist’s life points dropped to 0, and the duel was over.</p><p>Yusaku blinked. Surely that Number had an effect. An effect that probably could’ve saved it, he guessed. Why didn’t the other duelist activate it? Why did they let themself lose?</p><p>Bronk confronted Yuma about his reckless play, but Yuma didn’t want to hear it. Apparently, as long as he won, he didn’t care about the possibility that his plan went horribly wrong. Yusaku sucked in a deep breath. He was definitely on Bronk’s side on this one, but he also still had to live with Yuma. Joining the argument would just make life more annoying. </p><p>Eventually, Yuma and Bronk’s yelling reached a boiling point. The two of them turned around and left in opposite directions, leaving Tori and Yusaku by themselves.</p><p>“I don’t know how he doesn’t understand how dangerous that move was,” Yusaku muttered.</p><p>“Yuma never thinks things through like that. I mean, he focuses more on the victory he sees in front of him than the possible obstacles in the way. It helps boost his confidence; if he worried about the roadblocks too much, he’d give up every time. Plus, if that Number used an effect, Yuma could’ve saved himself with Utopia’s ability to negate the attack. Anyway, it doesn’t matter anymore. The duel’s over. We can’t let their friendship end like this,” Tori fretted. “Bronk and Yuma have been best friends for a long time. I don’t know if we can get them to see eye to eye on this, but we have to do something…”</p><p>‘We’. Right. Yusaku wasn’t one to care about friendship and friends, but after everything Tori, Yuma, and Bronk had been doing to try to help him, he owed them. Besides, Yuma wasn’t like Yusaku. Yuma deserved to have good friends. But what could Yusaku do about it? It wasn’t like he had much experience with this kind of thing. </p><p>What would Kolter do if Yusaku was stubborn like this? The two of them had a different kind of relationship than Bronk and Yuma, but… </p><p>“You try to talk to Bronk. I’ll try to talk to Yuma. If their friendship should be stronger than this one argument, we’ll try to remind them of that. You know Yuma better than I do, so maybe you can get Bronk to see where Yuma’s coming from.” Yusaku had a feeling that would go better than him trying to convince Yuma to see Bronk’s point of view. “Maybe we can get them to talk after they’ve cooled down a bit.”</p><p>If it didn’t work out, though, then it didn’t work out. If they were determined to be mad at each other, Yusaku didn’t know if he could stop them.</p><p>“Yeah…” Tori nodded. “I know they can work it out if we can get them to talk. Thanks, Yusaku.”</p><p>Yusaku shrugged. He didn’t feel like he was really doing much.</p><p>Tori ran after Bronk, while Yusaku headed back to Yuma’s house. Yuma had gone off in that direction, and Yusaku didn’t know where else he might go. If Yuma wasn't home, though, he’d have to go home eventually. Yusaku would be able to talk to him either way.</p><p>Luckily for him, though, Yuma was already at his home. As soon as Yusaku walked through the door, Yuma pulled Yusaku into his room to rant to him.</p><p>“Who cares if my attack in that duel didn’t work? It did, and that’s all that matters!” Yuma was still really worked up about this. “I know Bronk’s better at dueling me, but that doesn’t mean he has to put down my successes as much as my failures! I’m trying to get better, and he knows it because he’s been trying to help me. Doing a pretty lousy job of it right now, though.”</p><p>“Maybe you both have different dueling strategies,” Yusaku suggested. He was having trouble figuring out what to say, but he thought back to Tori’s words. “Sometimes it’s better to declare a reckless attack than to never do anything because you’re afraid of what could happen.” Yusaku knew from experience that that line of thinking would definitely lose you the duel. </p><p>“Exactly! I have to attack if I want my opponent to lose life points! If you were in my situation, what would you have done?”</p><p>“I would’ve been thinking about what that Number’s special ability could be. I would’ve felt safer with Utopia than most other monsters in that situation, since Utopia can negate the attack if it looks like it’s going to go back. But it’s always possible the opponent had an effect that would’ve prevented Utopia from using its effect, so I would’ve been cautious. I definitely would’ve wanted a Spell or Trap card backing me up. There’s a possibility I could’ve declared an attack, but I’m not sure.”</p><p>“It’s not as black and white as Bronk made it seem, anyway. He doesn’t need to be so high and mighty about it!”</p><p>“I don’t think it’s that,” Yusaku said. Not fully, anyway, he didn’t know Bronk that well. But Bronk knew Yuma better than Yusaku did, which meant Bronk probably had stronger feelings about this than Yusaku. At the very least, Yusaku had Kolter’s reactions to help him out on this, whenever Yusaku’s grades slipped or he skipped a class or he skipped meals for Playmaker business. He’d already had this discussion with Kolter multiple times. Yusaku’s relationship with Kolter was still different from Yuma’s relationship with Bronk, though. “I won’t say I know how he’s thinking without any doubts, but…he’s pointing it out because he cares about you. He was worried about you. Not because he thinks you’ll give up if you lose, but these duels involving Numbers are different from duels against your friends. You want to get all the Numbers to help Astral, and Bronk wants you to succeed because he cares about you so… He wanted you to win, and he was afraid you might not. He’s afraid that this could happen again and not work out for you. Or, uh, something like that, I think.”</p><p>“He’s not just trying to be mean?”</p><p>“I don’t think so. I don’t think friends are like that.”</p><p>Yuma sighed. “I was feeling the flow in that duel. Felt like I could do anything and it couldn’t go wrong. All I could think about was how I was gonna win. When I feel like that, sometimes it feels bad when everyone around me’s not supporting me.”</p><p>“You don’t always think ahead as much as other people tend to do. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It can be good to be in the moment and to enjoy the moment while you’re in it.” At the very least, Yusaku did miss that.</p><p>“I don’t wanna lose Bronk, but I don’t know what to do…”</p><p>“Talk to him. Communication is important in any kind of relationship working out. Figure out where you’re going from here. He probably doesn’t want to lose you, either.”</p><p>Yuma agreed to it, and later Bronk agreed to it, and they met up again after school. Tori went with them, while Yusaku met the group there. </p><p>However, it didn’t go well. The meeting turned into more fighting and arguing, and Bronk pushed Yusaku away from him. When he did so, he accidentally disconnected the key hanging around Yuma’s neck from its rope. The key went flying, landing near Yusaku. Yusaku bent down and picked the key up, not sure what else to do in this situation.</p><p>Astral was present for this meeting, floating silently next to Yuma. Since the most recent duel against the Number, he’d kept to himself and stayed fairly quiet. But now he was staring at the ground next to him, no longer absorbed in his thoughts. “Yuma, what is that?”</p><p>Yuma looked down as well and yelped when he saw it. Black slime was creating a puddle around Yuma, oozing around his shoes. Yusaku looked around the slime for its source; it appeared to be dripping out of Yuma’s deck. That was strange, considering Yuma did not coat his cards in black slime. Everyone else noticed this at the same time as Yuma before focusing their attention back to the slime on the ground. Now it was flowing towards Astral. Astral screamed in pain as it began to envelope him.</p><p>“Astral!!” Yuma reached a hand towards Astral, but didn’t make contact.</p><p>“Number 96… It is trying to take control of me!” Astral’s body started to turn dark as more of the slime reached him. He opened his eyes and looked towards Yuma. “Yuma… give Yusaku… card…”</p><p>Yuma blinked. “What card? Why?”</p><p>“Just do it!”</p><p>Yuma reached into his deck and pulled out some cards. Briefly, he looked at them as if deciding which one to pick. Then he tossed them to Yusaku, who caught them easily.</p><p>Yusaku glanced over the cards Yuma had just given him. One of them he recognized as Utopia. Another he recognized as.... the card he’d found when he first arrived in Heartland…</p><p>Were these the cards Astral wanted Yuma to give him? Why did Astral want Yusaku to have these?</p><p>Then Yusaku heard laughter, and he looked up from his cards. Astral had been completely overtaken by whatever that darkness was; even his eye that was normally all white was now all black. His lower body turned into long tentacles that curled around Yuma’s arms and torso. Yuma was lifted in the air. </p><p>Yums screamed. “Who are you? Let me go! Let Astral go!!!”</p><p>“I am the strongest Number of them all. When you dropped your key, you allowed me to escape.” Not-Astral was smiling coldly. The strongest Number? Astral had mentioned a Number when this started happening. Was this Number 96? “Now onto step two: acquiring Number 39, Utopia!” He glared at Yusaku. Yusaku took a step back. 96 already knew Yusaku had Utopia, then? “You will give him back to me.”</p><p>96 stretched his arm forward towards Yusaku, intending to grab the card out of his hand. Yusaku held the cards close to him to make them harder to grasp. 96’s hand came closer but something stopped it before his hand could get close enough. As if an invisible wall was protecting Yusaku. Yuma’s key, still in Yusaku’s other hand, glinted in the light. Did the key protect him?</p><p>This all started when the key was separated from Yuma… Was that how 96 had been able to gain control of Astral?</p><p>“No matter.” 96 pulled his arm back until it was at its normal length. “If I can’t get it back by force, then I’ll get it back with a duel. All this is is delayed satisfaction.”</p><p>Yusaku snorted. Bold of this Number to assume Yusaku would lose. “I’ll take you on to free Astral and Yuma.” Yusaku only dueled when he had to, so luckily for 96, his hand had already been forced. He glanced over at Bronk and Tori. “Stay out of this. I’ll get them back.” </p><p>Thankfully Yusaku was able to keep cool under the pressure. Link Vrains had given him experience dealing with people who seemed menacing and talked a big game. Tori and Bronk weren’t so lucky. They were both clearly worried and panicked. The two of them nodded and moved to be more on the sidelines. Their eyes barely left Yuma, still trapped in the air.</p><p>“Excellent.” Number 96 lowered Yuma to the ground. Yuma then proceeded to put on his duel gazer and draw his starting hand. “Oh, and by the way… Yuma will be dueling for me. Not his mind, but his body, so be careful..”</p><p>Yuma stared at Yusaku. Yuma was definitely scared, Yusaku could tell, but he knew Yuma wouldn’t lose his determination, either. “Can you duel?” Yuma asked. “You don’t even have a duel gazer…”</p><p>“I can duel without it.” Yusaku drew his starting hand as well, after sliding his cards from Yuma into his extra deck. It wasn’t like he could use his Link Monsters, anyway. “I have my deck, and that’s all I need.”</p><p>It’s all he ever needed. All the other students at his school had fancier duel disks and everything, but this duel disk that Yusaku had had for years still worked fine. The rest of his apartment had older tech anyway, from his phone to his kitchen appliances. It fit the aesthetic, as if that mattered.</p><p>“I’ll go first,” Yusaku announced before looking down at his hand. When he did, he could feel his stomach drop.</p><p>Maybe he should’ve asked to borrow Bronk’s deck, or something like that. For just a moment, he’d managed to forget the way his deck was built. It wasn’t just that he couldn’t use Link Monsters. A lot of his cards worked well with Link Monsters, many of them even having effects that required him to have one on his field. He wouldn’t be able to use some of his cards at all. He could win like this, right?</p><p>“What’s wrong? Ready to give up already?” Number 96 taunted.</p><p>Yusaku shook himself out of it. He could still win. Of course he could win. He couldn’t lose. Especially not now. “Because I have no monsters on my field, I can special summon Linkslayer from my hand.” He normally could start to pull combos in his first turn, but these conditions made it more difficult. “I place two cards face-down and end my turn.”</p><p>“A weak start.” Number 96 chuckled. “My turn now.” Yuma drew a card, grimacing. “First, I will place two cards face-down. Next, I am summoning Acorno. I can summon this card by sending one card in my hand to the graveyard. And, you see, since the card I sent to the grave is Pinecono, it sprouts back up right on the field. Next I summon forth Darklon. And now, since Darklon was summoned, all my monsters increase their level by 1. But, I am not done yet. Next, I am overlaying these 3 level 2s to XYZ summon a copy of myself. Number 96: Dark Mist!”</p><p>A Number card already? 96 didn’t like to waste time. </p><p>“Wait, how is that thing Dark Mist?” Tori asked. “It’s completely different from before.”</p><p>Yusaku didn’t notice any difference, but that was because he couldn’t see Dark Mist at all without the Augmented Reality system. That seemed to be working in his favor right now: Bronk, Tori, and Yuma seemed far more intimidated than him by the newly summoned monster.</p><p>“That is because this is Dark Mist’s true appearance. And now, Dark Mist, attack Linkslayer!”</p><p>Yusaku frowned. Dark Mist only had 100 Attack, but 96 was still declaring battle. 96 must have something up his sleeve; Yusaku knew there was more to Dark Mist than first appeared.</p><p>“I activate Dark Mist’s special ability. By using 1 overlay unit, Dark Mist can steal half of your monster’s Attack points in order to power itself up.”</p><p>“So as long as Dark Mist has overlay units, it’ll always be stronger than any of my monsters.” Yusaku grit his teeth. This wasn’t good.</p><p>“You catch on quickly!” 96 grinned back at Yusaku. “Now, let him have it.”</p><p>Dark Mist started to unleash its attack on Linkslayer, but luckily Yusaku was prepared for an attack, even if he wasn’t sure how. “I activate my trap: Three Strikes Barrier. Linkslayer isn’t destroyed.”</p><p>“But you still take the damage! Now, I end my turn,” 96 finished. </p><p>Yusaku drew his next card. “Since Linkslayer’s Attack is different from its original Attack, I play Cyberse Cache and draw 2 cards.” Perfect. “Now I activate Linkslayer’s special ability. By sending two cards to the graveyard, I destroy your two face-downs.” Destroying the cards themselves wasn’t too important to Yusaku’s plan, but it was a bonus. “I summon ROM Cloudia. ROM Cloudia allows me to add Latency to my hand from my graveyard. And since Latency was added to my hand from my graveyard, I can summon it right away.” Latency went to the field on defense. </p><p>Yusaku stared at the cards on his field. Dark Mist should have 1100 attack right now. Linkslayer couldn’t beat that, but ROM Cloudia was a different story. “Now, ROM Cloudia attacks Dark Mist.”</p><p>“I use another overlay unit to use Dark Mist’s attack again!” 96 smirked at Yusaku.</p><p>“So you can use that effect during my turn as well,” Yusaku mused.</p><p>96 laughed. “Perhaps now you see. For every move you make, I can make one better.”</p><p>At least Yusaku knew for sure now. “From my hand, I activate Security Block. Neither of us take damage, and ROM Cloudia isn’t destroyed.”</p><p>Dark Mist should now be up to 2000 Attack. This wasn’t looking good, but Yusaku could work with that. “I place one card face-down and end my turn.”</p><p>“Stay tough, you hear me?” Yuma called out to Yusaku. </p><p>Yusaku nodded. He had a plan in mind by now, since he was sure how Dark Mist’s ability worked. He wasn’t coming out of this duel with anything but a win. </p><p>Now it was 96’s turn. He looked over the card he drew, and smiled. “Let’s have a do-over. Black Mist, attack ROM Cloudia. Black Mist’s ability activates once again!”</p><p>That brought Black Mist up to 2450, if Yusaku’s math was correct. Yusaku frowned. Why was Number 96 so fixated on ROM Cloudia? He couldn’t save ROM Cloudia this time, but he’d already…</p><p>96 laughed. “It’s pointless to keep fighting.” He turned to Yuma. “Do you have any insights into what he’s planning?”</p><p>“I wouldn’t tell you even if I knew, but I’ve never seen Yusaku duel.” Yuma shrugged. “I’ve never seen his cards, either. It’s all as new to me as it is to you. I’m on the edge of my seat, I can’t wait to see how Yusaku pulls off a victory!”</p><p>“He won’t. Not like this,” 96 muttered.</p><p>Yusaku looked over his cards. He could make this work. Everything was coming together. “I summon Draconnet. And using its ability, I can summon Dotscaper from my deck.”</p><p>“I hope you’re planning something with all these monsters,” Bronk commented.</p><p>“I always have a plan.” Normally, it’d be a Link Summon, but this time Yusaku had something different up his sleeve. “I overlay level 1 Latency and Dotscaper.” Yusaku held both his hands out, palms forward, and crossed them over each other. The number 13 appeared, glowing, on his right palm. “Appear, Rank 1, Number 13: Embodiment of Crime!”</p><p>As the Embodiment of Crime took the field, Yusaku felt the same feeling he did when he first picked up this card when he arrived in Heartland. Revenge. An overwhelming desire to lash out, get revenge against the people that hurt Yusaku and the people he cared about. It threatened to consume him, just as before. But this time he could direct it. Number 96 had hurt Yuma, taken him hostage, and like this Yusaku could clearly see how much he cared about Yuma. He could direct it at 96 and still do exactly what he intended to do before he had been given any Numbers.</p><p>Yusaku had been fueled by his revenge before, and now once more he would direct it to achieve his goals. He still felt that strong desire, but it stopped trying to overtake him as he committed himself. </p><p>Number 96’s eyes widened. “That’s not Rank 4… That’s not… Utopia… What is this?”</p><p>“You thought I was trying to summon Utopia?” Yusaku rolled his eyes. Did he look like Yuma, always trying to win his duels with Utopia? “If it was convenient, maybe. But I’m not done. Embodiment of Crime uses one overlay unit to change all your monsters to Attack mode.”</p><p>“Black Mist is already in Attack mode,” 96 pointed out. “I’m starting to wonder if you should have placed your hopes in someone else, Yuma. Someone whose deck you were familiar with and you knew could win, perhaps?”</p><p>“I know Yusaku can win. I don’t need to know his deck to know that.”</p><p>“And I’m still not finished. Since Dotscaper was the overlay unit I used, its ability activates, allowing me to Special Summon it,” Yusaku went on. “Next, I play Cynet Defrag. I Special Summon Protron from my graveyard. Once again, I overlay both my level 1 monsters to XYZ Summon Number 31: Embodiment of Punishment!” </p><p>This time, during Yusaku’s XYZ Summon, the number 31 glowed on his left palm. </p><p>“Another Rank 1 monster with only a seemingly worthless ability to help you,” Number 96 mused. “If you want to win, your next move better be good.”</p><p>“I end my turn,” Yusaku said.</p><p>“You pulled off two XYZ Summons and you aren’t even gonna attack?” Yuma puffed his cheeks.</p><p>“Why would he? Check you math, Yuma, Embodiments of Crime and Punishment both have only 500 Attack,” Tori pointed out.</p><p>“Why summon monsters with almost no Attack??”</p><p>As confused as Yuma was, Yusaku wasn’t going to explain anything. Not until Number 96 entered the Battle Phase, anyway. 96 was cautious about the new Number, but Yuma wasn’t about to let him get away without battling.</p><p>“I use one overlay unit to activate Embodiment of Punishment’s effect. Dark Mist is forced to attack Embodiment of Punishment. As long as Embodiment of Crime is on the field, Embodiment of Punishment isn’t destroyed as long as it still has one overlay unit, and you take the damage I would take!”</p><p>“I do not like this,” 96 said. Even if Black Mist had an overlay unit left, it would only make the situation worse for him.</p><p>“Well, you’re going to positively hate what’s coming next. Do you feel it, Yusaku? I sure do!” Yuma yelled.</p><p>Black Mist had 2,450 Attack. Embodiment of Punishment had 500, leaving 96 to take 1,950 points of damage, and all the monsters on Yusaku’s field had enough Attack to take out the rest of 96’s Life Points.</p><p>96 scowled. “I suppose I have no choice but to end my turn.”</p><p>From there, the duel was practically over. All he needed was Cyberse Wizard’s effect, and his monsters took care of the rest.</p><p>And as they attacked, he ran forward. He ran towards Yuma. Once he was within reach, Yusaku threw his arms around Yuma. After a moment, Yuma hugged him back. And while they stood there and hugged, Yusaku tied the key’s rope together around Yuma’s neck, allowing him to wear the key just like he had before. </p><p>The hug had started out awkward. Yusaku couldn’t remember the last time he gave a hug, he only ever remembered receiving them, and the way he’d wrapped his arms around Yuma definitely didn’t seem how it felt whenever Yuma had hugged him. Not to mention the difference in their heights. But Yuma did hug him back. And hugged him back. He didn’t let Yusaku go for what seemed like a long time. From behind him, Yusaku could hear Tori and Bronk running towards them as well. Resigning himself to his fate, Yusaku braced himself for a group hug. </p><p>Once the key was securely around Yuma’s neck once more, Astral reappeared beside them. He reabsorbed Number 96, and obtained Black Mist once more.</p><p>“Only friends so close fight so much...” Astral mused to himself.</p><p>Only seconds later, Yusaku could feel himself being hugged by three people at once, and he was starting to regret some of his decisions.</p><p>Bronk and Yuma immediately started apologizing to each other for everything.</p><p>“I’m so glad everyone’s getting along again,” Tori sighed. “Of course, we have Yusaku to thank for that!”</p><p>“Yeah, that was awesome! I know you said you could duel, but you did so many cool moves, and you totally had a plan the whole time that you made work no matter what, and you saved me and Astral, and I wish I could watch you duel again!”</p><p>“Not interested.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I probably actually spent two or three weeks working on just this part because of the duel. I’ve held onto 40 different screenshots to plan out this duel, I had to watch a specific episode of Zexal twice and track down part of an episode of Vrains that I rewatched a bunch of times. I also had to rewrite this duel probably around twice because I used the wrong cards and misread card effects. All the work paid off, though. The duel should all be correct now, and this was one of my favorite parts to write.</p><p>Thanks for reading! I hope you've been enjoying the story!!!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. "I'd like to formally propose that you hug me."</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Here we are at day 6! This is the last day of the event, but there's still one more chapter to go! This time I only used one prompt:</p><p>"I'd like to formally propose that you hug me."</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Have you guys found any leads?”</p><p>Kari sat down at the table across from Yuma, Yusaku adjacent to them both. Yuma had insisted on ‘chowing down on some duel fuel’ before going out for the day, and somehow it’d become a family + Yusaku affair.</p><p>Whatever this ‘duel fuel’ was, it wasn’t something Yusaku was used to eating much, but it was good. Maybe he could find some way to make something like this cheaply at home.</p><p>“Nope. No clues on how to get Yusaku home.” Yuma talked through his food. “I think Astral might have learned something, but he’s being quiet and won’t say anything to me. I dunno if it’ll help either of them get home or not, but he likes to annoy me so much that it’s weird for him to be so quiet for so long.”</p><p>“I’m sure Astral will be fine.” The look in Kari’s eyes told Yusaku she wasn’t entirely convinced that Astral existed. Which was fair, because Yusaku wasn’t convinced at all until he could actually see Astral for himself. </p><p>“I hope so.” Yuma sighed. “For now, all we can do is keep looking.”</p><p>“Yuma…”</p><p>“I know, Kari, no dueling allowed. Whatever. We’ve been reading stuff that might have any clues—“</p><p>“Tori, Bronk, and I have been reading,” Yusaku corrected after swallowing a bite of his food. </p><p>Yuma rolled his eyes. “Ugh. Whatever! Reading is hard.”</p><p>Kari snorted. “I appreciate that you’re trying as much as you can to help Yusaku find a way home in a way that doesn’t involve duels, Yuma. But I don’t think I mind dueling as much with Yusaku around. He’s really good at dueling, from the sounds of it. I feel like I can actually trust him, to protect you.”</p><p>“I don’t need protecting. But he is, Kari, you should’ve seen it! He kept pulling all these monsters out of his graveyard, which is like, usually you can’t use the cards in there anymore! He did two XYZ summons in one turn, and it was so cool…”</p><p>Yuma had already told Kari this story the other day, but she was letting him describe it again, commentary included. Yusaku tuned it out. He already knew the whole story since he’d played those moves himself.</p><p>Once they were done eating, Yuma was ready to pull Yusaku out the door, but Kari told Yuma to go ahead by himself.</p><p>Yusaku and Kari were soon alone in Kari’s room.</p><p>“You wanted to talk to me?” Yusaku asked.</p><p>Kari looked at him. “You know duels can be dangerous. That’s why I need your help.” She showed him her computer monitors, multiple displaying news reports she was currently working on. “Mom and Dad told me he’d be in danger because of dueling, but...it’s hard sometimes. I try to get him to stop, but I know I can’t. I can’t be around him 24/7 with all the work I have to do, and I don’t duel much myself. I barely have any time for it if I wanted to try. I can only do so much by myself.” She sighed. “But if you’re as good as Yuma says, then you can help him in ways I can’t. I’m not trusting you lightly, so please… please watch out for him and take care of him. Help him out however you can. I don’t have much family left.”</p><p>Yusaku knew the feeling.</p><p>1, he knew just how dangerous duels could be. 2, he didn’t trust easily either, for his own reasons. And 3, he was missing family, too. </p><p>Yusaku knew how Kari felt. And that’s why he had 3 reasons why he was going to help her, even if he didn’t care for Yuma at all. (But he did, and he was going to help Yuma regardless.)</p><p>(This wasn’t the first time he’d started to feel like he had a family again since he’d been alone, but he was feeling it here, too. He was going to help them, whatever it took.)</p><p>“I’ll do it."</p><hr/><p>“You know how cool you were in that duel, right?” </p><p>The day was nearly over by now; Yuma had brought Yusaku back to his room for the night. They weren’t much closer to helping Astral nor Yusaku, but Yusaku was okay with that right now. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go home, but he didn’t mind staying here. It was like a break from his actual, regular life.</p><p>He shrugged. “I suppose so.” He still really didn’t see it that way. It was difficult at all to see anything he did as appealing, if Yusaku was being honest. He was used to spending a lot of his time being a wanted criminal.</p><p>“If I may make a suggestion, Yuma, Yusaku has been listening to you tell everyone you know all day about that duel and about how ‘cool’ he was.” Astral was floating above the sleeping bag, looking down at them both. “Maybe a topic change is in order.”</p><p>“Maybe…” Yuma frowned. “I just don’t know what… I didn’t know what to do, and I couldn’t do anything, and…”</p><p>Yusaku frowned. Yuma had been in 96’s control for that entire duel. That must’ve been scary for him. </p><p>“You did the best you could. There’s nothing else that you had to do. I was able to handle it.”</p><p>Yuma huffed. “I guess so. It all ended okay. So, you know, time to focus on the next problem instead of an old one, right?”</p><p>Yusaku didn’t answer that question. Instead, his thoughts wandered.</p><p>If Yuma felt bad about accepting help, Yusaku knew that feeling all too well. It’d been difficult for him to even accept help from Kolter at first, and Kolter had already been involved with his problems. It was difficult for him to accept help; Yusaku stubbornly wanted to do everything himself, especially if getting someone’s help could get them hurt.</p><p>And yet, after he came to Heartland…</p><p>“Yuma.”</p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>“I’d like to formally propose that we hug.”</p><p>“Huh? Where’d this come from?”</p><p>“When I helped you out the other day… it might be the best I ever come to making it even. You’ve helped me a lot more than I’ve been able to help you,” Yusaku told him. “You decided to help me and let me stay here when you barely knew me. I’d be a lot worse off if you hadn’t. I’ve learned out a lot more about how I might be able to get home than I probably would without you.” A lot more, because Yusaku didn’t know if he’d be able to figure out anything. With Yuma already having a friend from another world, Yusaku had been much more open to the idea that Den City and Heartland where in different worlds.</p><p>“This is the least I can do, so… I’d like to formally propose that we hug.”</p><p>Yuma grinned and immediately pulled Yusaku into a hug that Yusaku quickly returned.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I didn't finish this chapter until after hugsaku started. I really let myself run down to the wire on this one.</p><p>It's the first time Yusaku's asked Yuma for a hug!!! It's a big step forward!!! I'm really excited for him</p><p>Thanks for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Memories | Loss | Missing a Friend</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is the last chapter! I ended up wanting to go two completely different directions with prompts from the last day, so that's why I wrote two different chapters for day 6. If they both ended up being too short, I would've combined them, but since that didn't end up being the case, I kept them separate as planned.</p><p>These are the prompts I used for this chapter:<br/>Memories<br/>Loss<br/>Missing a Friend</p><p>After working on this for two months straight, it feels bittersweet posting this chapter... I'm happy to share it, but sad that it's over. But also excited to move onto the next things I work on! This event gave me inspiration for other things, too, so I'm excited for the future! And it really was two months straight... I started this chapter in December 2020, and finished writing this chapter yesterday. That's how down to the wire it was! But it was worth it. I'm really happy with this.</p><p>Thank you so much for reading. I really hope you enjoy.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Yusaku woke up, and immediately realized something was different.</p><p>He wasn’t in Yuma’s room. In a panic, Yusaku looked around the room he was in now. The last thing he remembered was talking to Yuma last night, falling asleep in his sleeping bag as usual. But there was no sleeping bag anywhere on the floor here, and the walks were a completely different color than Yuma’s room.</p><p>The walls weren’t white, though.</p><p>As he looked around, Yusaku realized that he recognized this room. It wasn’t in Yuma’s house, or anywhere in Heartland. This was the back room he used to log into Vrains sometimes. In his apartment. In Den City. </p><p>“Now I’m back here again,” Yusaku said quietly to himself. “How did I get here? What happened?”</p><p>He went over the facts in his mind.</p><p>When he arrived in Heartland, he had no idea how he got there. He’d lost his memory of what happened before that. That had left him with no idea of what exactly happened. Now, he didn’t know what happened, either, but he had a clearer picture of what had happened this time, before arriving in Den City. He’d been asleep.</p><p>“A time limit, perhaps? Or maybe some condition had to be met for…”</p><p>Neither of those options sounded very likely to Yusaku, but they were at least ideas. Before he speculated much further, however, he should probably get out of this room. Change his clothes out of the smelly school uniform he’d been wearing the entire day before. Get something to eat.</p><p>He pulled his hoodie on without even looking at the calendar. Yusaku didn’t care if it was a school day; he should deserve to skip just one day to figure out what was going on, what had happened to him, readjust to his normal schedule and normal life. And as for food, well, there was nothing Yusaku was craving more than a hot dog right now.</p><p>Once he left his room, he ran into Roboppy, who was happy and excited to see him. He made sure to explain that he wasn’t going to disappear again and would definitely return later that day before leaving his apartment.</p><p>As he left, he pulled his hood over his head and shoved his hands into his pockets. </p><p>Going out to get a hot dog was actually a multipurpose trip. Yusaku could figure out what happened to him later. Right now, he had to remember he was also Playmaker. He needed to check on the state of the world, figure out what was going on both inside and outside of Vrains. He couldn’t recklessly show himself to the world again before that. And if anyone would be able to help him figure that out again, it would be his partner in crime.</p><p>Cafe Nom was open for business. As Yusaku entered the line, though he noticed a sign on the vehicle announcing open hours were temporarily reduced. That made Yusaku frown. Had something happened to Jin, or had Kolter actually been closing Cafe Nom early because Yusaku had been missing?</p><p>Normally Kolter was friendly with his customers. He got to know the regulars pretty well and chatted with everyone as he prepared their orders. But as the line move ahead, Yusaku could tell something was off. Kolter was quieter than usual. He seemed distracted.</p><p>When Yusaku reached the front of the line, no one was behind him.</p><p>“One hotdog, please.”</p><p>Yusaku’s voice seem to catch Kolter’s attention. He looked up, entirely focused now. “...Yusaku? Is that…”</p><p>Yusaku pulled his hood down, and Kolter told him to get inside the truck. As Yusaku walked around to the door, Kolter closed up Cafe Nom for the day. </p><p>“You’re back!!” Kolter wrapped Yusaku into a tight hug. “I missed you, buddy, I was really worried. It’s really good to see you again.”</p><p>Yusaku felt choked up. He’d done his best while in Heartland not to let himself get caught in homesickness, but now it was hitting him how much he’d missed Kolter. Kolter, Cafe Nom, and this truck felt just as much like home if not more to Yusaku than his actual apartment these days. His eyes stung; he did his best not to let them water. Yusaku didn’t mind this hug at all. He hugged Kolter back. “I missed you, too. I’m sorry I disappeared.”</p><p>“You didn’t do anything. Don’t apologize.” Kolter let Yusaku go. He was smiling. “All that matters is you’re back now.”</p><p>“Come on, don’t Ai get a hug, too?”</p><p>Yusaku looked away from Kolter. There was a duel disk sitting in one of the chairs next to the hidden computer. He assumed it was Kolter’s. Ai was sitting on the duel disk. He voice sounded annoyed, but he seemed to have perked up at the sight of Yusaku. The annoyance didn’t translate to his body language at all.</p><p>“You’re too small for hugs.” Yusaku rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “Besides, I don’t like hugs.”</p><p>“Liar! I saw you hug hot dog guy. If you didn’t like hugs you wouldn’t hug!”</p><p>“Hot dog guy…?” Kolter asked himself quietly.</p><p>“I had to get used to hugs while I was gone, that’s all,” Yusaku told Ai. “It was difficult, but I was able to handle it until I came back.”</p><p>“You don’t seem very upset about it.”</p><p>“Shut up. I’ll mute you.”</p><p>“I’m not in your duel disk, you can’t do that.”</p><p>“Wait, back up. What happened to you after you disappeared?” Kolter asked. He examined Yusaku’s face. “You don’t seem like you’re hurt or anything like that.”</p><p>“No, I’m okay.” Yusaku explained it all to Kolter. Heartland, which was in another world. The Number cards, powerful XYZ monsters that held parts of Astral’s memory and took control of duelists. Astral and Number 96. Kari, her grandmother, Tori, Bronk. Yuma. How Yuma gave him a place to stay, helped him look for a way home, how Yusaku helped Yuma look for monsters, the one time Yusaku dueled in order to save Yuma.</p><p>“Well, if you were in another world, I guess that explains why you disappeared from our end,” Kolter said. “That’s really strange, though. I never thought about there being like, another dimension besides our own, very similar to ours but still pretty different.”</p><p>“I never did either, before this all happened. But what exactly did happen?” Yusaku asked. “I don’t remember anything that happened before I showed up in Heartland. Do you know how I got there?”</p><p>“I saw what happened before you disappeared. It’s just a guess, but I can show you.” Kolter brought out the computer and navigated through its files until he found a specific video. “I saved this recording after I realized I couldn’t find you. You were at your apartment when I noticed something strange was happening in Vrains, so I called you. You logged in from your apartment to investigate.”</p><p>Kolter fast-forwarded through a good portion of the video, eventually stopping to play it.</p><p>“You should be close to it,” Kolter’s voice crackled on the computer. “Do you see anything?”</p><p>“I haven’t noticed anything so far,” Yusaku heard his own voice say. There was Playmaker on his hoverboard. “Wait, what’s that?”</p><p>Seconds after Playmaker noticed it, something huge showed on the screen. It looked like an extremely elaborate door that was closed.</p><p>“Is that a door?” Kolter’s voice asked.</p><p>Then, Yusaku heard a voice he hadn’t heard before. Yet, something about it sounded familiar. “Whoever opens this door will obtain a new power, but know with such a reward comes great risk. In exchange, they will lose what they appreciate the most.”</p><p>Ai, from the recording, laughed nervously. “That’s not ominous at all.”</p><p>Yusaku watched himself hover in place near the door. He was looking closely at it, but still maintaining enough of a distance to fee safe. What exactly was that door?</p><p>“I don’t like the sound of that,” Kolter’s voice said. “A great risk? Lose what you appreciate most? That doesn’t sound worth whatever that new power is. We can’t afford to lose anything right now.”</p><p>“But we can’t afford to lose our mission, either,” Playmaker pointed out. “A new power could help with that. Finding the Cyberse deck was risky, but we still pursued it. We did that together, but this should be something I do alone, if I’m going to do it.”</p><p>“Alone?”</p><p>“You have a lot to lose. Both of you do. I won’t ask you to make that choice. But I have nothing left to lose. What could be taken from me? I don’t know if my power is enough as is to achieve our goals. If this can help, it’s worth it.”</p><p>“I’m really not sure about this,” Kolter’s voice warned. “Something will still be taken from you. I know I can’t stop you, but—“</p><p>“I’ve already made up my mind. Ai, go somewhere you know you’ll be safe.”</p><p>Yusaku watched himself put a hand against the door and look down at his duel disk. Ai didn’t seem happy about this either. But after a moment, he disappeared. Then Yusaku saw himself open the door and hover through it, and then the door closed behind him.</p><p>The recording ended there, aimed at the closed doors.</p><p>Kolter, the present day Kolter, exited out of the recording. “You never came back out of the door, and after a while the door disappeared. Ai came to me and we hoped you’d just logged out. We couldn’t find you anywhere in Vrains. But days passed and you didn’t come back here, you weren’t in school. We weren’t sure what to think, we…” Kolter looked down at his hands. He seemed unable to look at Yusaku.</p><p>“It looked like, when I went through the door, what I lost was myself,” Yusaku said quietly.</p><p>Kolter breathed in sharply. “I… We couldn’t lose you, not now. I tried looking for you outside of Vrains, too, I kept looking, but you just weren’t anywhere. It makes sense now, though.”</p><p>“What did I lose, though?” Yusaku asked himself. “What I appreciate most…”</p><p>“Oh, let me guess, let me guess!” Ai had stayed quiet up to this point. When Yusaku wasn’t looking, Ai must have reentered Yusaku’s duel disk, since he was there now. “Your life in Den City? Vrains? Being Playmaker? Your cards? Oh, was it me?”</p><p>Yusaku ignored him. “What did I lose, and what did I gain? Why did I come back now?”</p><p>“You were supposed to gain a new power, so maybe it’s possible you went to that dimension to claim it, and came back once you got it?” Kolter suggested. </p><p>“I got it! I got it!” Ai rose a hand in the air. “You learned the value of friendship! And what you lost was us! We’re what you value you most! Aww, Yusaku, I didn’t know you cared so much.”</p><p>Yusaku glanced at his deck, still firmly in his duel disk. “I’m not sure about that.”</p><p>“You did open up to at least someone in that place, though, and I’m glad you were able to.” Kolter looked up at Yusaku. “He sounds like a good friend. What was his name again? Yuma?”</p><p>“Yeah…” Yusaku sighed. “He’s good at being a friend. He helped me a lot, anyway, and he barely knew who I was. He’s the kind of person that deserves good friends.” </p><p>“Hey, everyone does,” Kolter told him. “But it sounds like he does. From the sounds of it, I don’t think he’ll ever forget you. You helped him too, you know.”</p><p>“I won’t forget him, either. He’d be hard to forget. He barely knew what his cards did, he was annoying and obnoxious, and he kept ignoring what people told him.” Yusaku’s mouth turned up into a fond smile. “And he kept trying to cheer me up, and he never gave up, even when the odds were against him.”</p><p>From Yuma complaining to Astral about trying to offer help in a duel, to Yuma promising Yusaku they’d figure out how to get him home, to Yuma trying and failing to read a book, to Yuma under 96’s control and still believing in Yusaku’s ability to win the duel even when the situation looked bad. Yusaku had a lot of unforgettable memories of Yuma. He could still hear Yuma in his head, telling Yuma to feel the flow and not give up.</p><p>Of course, he had lots of unforgettable memories with the people here that he cared about, too.</p><p>It felt easier, now, to admit to himself that he did care about them.</p><p>“Is it weird that I miss him?” Yusaku asked himself quietly.</p><p>“I’ve missed my friends before.” Ai was uncharacteristically somber. “Even when we were worlds apart. I don’t think it’s weird at all.”</p><p>“Of course it’s not weird. It doesn’t matter how far apart you are. I’m sure he misses you, too,” Kolter said. “But I’m glad you came back. We missed you, buddy.”</p><p>Yusaku’s eyes felt itchy. He blinked a few times.” I did, too.”</p><p>Kolter brought Yusaku into another hug, this one more gentle. Yusaku leaned into it. Ai reached up to put a hand against Yusaku’s face.</p><p>He really was happy to be back with his team. That didn’t mean he couldn’t miss the people he met in the other world, though.</p><p>Yuma, his family, and his friends were still out there somewhere, living their own lives, and Yusaku would never stop thinking about them. He was sure that they wouldn’t stop thinking of him, either.</p><p>That’s what friendship was, he knew that now. No matter how far apart, they’d always still be a part of each other.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Here comes the deleted scene section, I suppose, where I talk about dropped ideas for this story. I did a lot of planning, so there were quite a few.</p><p>-When it came to the family prompt, I thought about incorporating Shark into the story for that prompt, given his relationship with family. I ended up cutting it. It would've been looking more into Yuma's relationship with Shark rather than Yusaku getting to know Shark (which still would have been interesting, Yusaku meeting Shark), but ultimately my main focus wasn't Yusaku just meeting a bunch of Zexal characters, I was focusing more on Yusaku and Yuma specifically, and it just didn't work. </p><p>-I really liked the "I know you're in there! Wake up!" prompt, and thought about incorporating it in. I considered having Yusaku be used by Number 96 instead of Yuma, which just didn't work for a lot of reasons. This may end up inspiring me somewhere else... I'll have to see.</p><p>-"I've been wanting to talk to you for a long time." was another one I liked a lot and thought was really cool but just had no idea how to work it in. </p><p>-Figuring out how to end this story was very difficult for me, because ultimately, I knew I needed to answer the question this story started out with: what exactly happened to Yusaku? I've left it a little up to interpretation on the specifics, but originally it was going to be a lot more up to interpretation. I realized that would've been very unsatisfying. The whole story Yusaku and Yuma try to figure this out, and for Yusaku to never figure it out... My first planned, more specific ending, was very different. Yusaku, Yuma, Tori, and Bronk were going to find a portal similar to the one Dr. Faker, Yuma's dad, and Byron found that sent Yuma's dad to Astral World and Byron to Barian World. The portal the kids found would've sent Yusaku back home. But I wasn't satisfied with this idea, either. It brought up a lot more questions I didn't know how to answer. This is what I've decided on, and I like it a lot more than anything else I came up with.</p><p>-I went back and forth a lot on whether I wanted Yusaku to be able to see Astral. But I was always pushing Yusaku in that direction from the very beginning, I kept giving Astral dialogue, and ultimately I just really wanted to. I'm not surprised I caved. Given that Astral and Shark are my two favorite Zexal characters, it would've been very difficult to decide not to let Yusaku meet either. </p><p>Overall, this was a lot of fun to write, and I'm really glad I get to finally share the whole thing now. It's good to see it finished, too. I never expected to see this reach over 16,000 words or anywhere close, but it's been a long labor of love. Thanks for being here and letting me share it with you. This was an experiment in a lot of ways, and I think it came out really well.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Once again, <a href="https://hugsaku.tumblr.com/themes">here</a> is the list of prompts, <a href="https://datanamines.tumblr.com/tagged/hugsaku/chrono">here</a> is where you can find all the posts on tumblr, if you wish. Everyone's work for hugsaku has been really good and I highly recommend checking it out!</p><p>Sorry for going off the grid on ao3 for a couple of months. I've been working on this story and only this story for almost the entire time. I hope this makes up for it, and I have other unpublished material to upload on here, so there'll be more to see from me soon. Thank you for your patience.</p><p>I run the <a href="https://discord.gg/76PT8GG">No One in Yugioh is Straight</a> server, and anyone's free to join if they wish. You can also find me on <a href="http://datanamines.tumblr.com/">tumblr @ datanamines</a>, or <a href="http://twitter.com/tatersalad5001">twitter @ tatersalad5001</a>, though I'm far less likely to talk about writing on twitter than on tumblr.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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